Friday, May 3, 2013

A Story a Day May - 5/2

Today's assignment was to pick a character and write a story based on something they want. I decided to work on a story that I hope to include in a short story collection called "Brink." I was inspired to write "Brink" when I read an article about a planet that was orbiting a black hole. The atmosphere had been torn from the planet, but the bulk of the mass was still intact, forever on the event horizon. I started thinking about what life would be like on the edge of a tear in the time/space continum. This is one of the stories. It's a very, very rough draft. I hope that you enjoy. There is some mild profanity.

Brink – Circus

The two men sat beside the fire, huddled against the
cold.The fire was eerie. The flames small, white-blue, and they hissed
and danced.Several such fires glowed
amongst the trees.Firestones, they were
called.Fifty years ago a team of marine
biologist had found them growing on the edge of a vent deep in an underground
sea.Dry, they were unremarkable, porous
white mushroom-like minerals brought up from the depths by the air that bubbled
past. The d a couple of droops of water, though, and they came to life, giving
off remarkable amounts of heat along with the freakish blue light.Now, the vents were mined day and night,
harvesting the stones, and the entire country was powered by them.They were heavily favored among the Homeless,
as they were called in these parts.Lightweight, easy to stuff into a pocket, infinitely useful.They were in fact, the reason the man had
come here in the first place.Of course,
civilians weren’t allowed to possess a firestone.Highly illegal.But then to even be Homeless required a
certain disregard for the laws of any given land.

“Go home, kid,” the man said for at least the fiftieth
time.“You ain’t crossed yet, it’s not
too late.”The kid didn’t listen, just
like he hadn’t any of the times before. His
head was full of all of these romantic notions of how it would be; the freedom,
the adventures.He was always wanting to
hear stories.“Tell me about this, tell
me about that,” all the damn time.The
man had tried to tell the kid what some old man had told him decades
before.Simply put, once you stand in
one world and piss in another somehow you can’t go home.But, it hadn’t worked, just like it hadn’t
worked with him.

“What was it like your first time?” the kid asked.The man shook his head.“See, you don’t ask about stuff like that,”
he said.“It’s personal.Like asking a guy about the first time he was
with a woman.”“Oh.”The kid started at the flames.“Well, what’s that like?”The man sighed.The kid wasn’t going to get it, plain and
simple.You can’t fix stupid, and the
kid was as stupid as it got.No, that
wasn’t true.Not stupid.Just…young.Green.Still wet behind the ears.It all came down to the same thing, though.Oh well, he’d learn.If he went through with it and didn't turn
back shivering and crying from the line.Or go insane.Or kill himself
when he finally realized what he’d done.He’d learn.

Suddenly, there was movement from the edge of the wood.Muffled curses, the crackling of leaves,
thumps as the firestones were doused with sand.Then the flashlights, sending out beams through the woods.Cops, the man thought at first and packed up
camp in a hurry.Then he heard the
shouts and the laughter.Not cops then,
but kids.Locals. Teenagers, probably,
got their dander up and were out to show how tough they were by beating on some
Homeless.A couple of years back a
Homeless man had taken up residence in these parts.Of course, he was also a psychopath and by
the time he was brought down he’d killed about a dozen local girls.Eaten some of them.Pretty gruesome stuff.The fact of it was that for every one that
went bad, there were hundreds, thousands maybe, who just wanted to be left alone
to live their lives.Still, one was all
it took to make a whole country turn on them all.The man packed up his gear in a hurry and
started to flee.The kid stood by where
the fire used to be, staring at the shadows behind the beams.“What are you doing?” the man grunted, “run!”The kid’s smooth forehead wrinkled.He looked like a baby in that minute, not even
fuzz o his checks.“But why?” he asked. “I
know them.Or, I might.Probably.Maybe I could explain to them, let them know you’re good guys.Then you wouldn’t have to run.” The locals
were coming closer.In a moment they’d
be on top of them.The man paused for a
minute, torn, and then he shrugged.“Have
it your way,” he said, and sprinted to safety.

The onslaught didn’t last long.They never did.Teenaged boys got bored easily, especially
faced with a quarry that would rather hide than fight, had been hiding for more
years than the kids had been alive.A
few sharp sizzles of electricity, a few cries of pain.A few cruel laughs as they tore apart some
packs, and then it was all over.When he
was sure that it was over, the man walked back to where their camp had
been.He found the kid right where he
had left him, laying on his back, his eyes wide and unblinking.A long, red gash ran across his stomach, the
edges of the shirt around it melted into the skin.The boy’s breath came in shallow gasps.“Aw, hell,” the ma said. “What did you do
that for?You dam fool.”The boy’s lips moved, making bubbles of blood
and spittle.The man leaned down to
hear.“Tell me,” the boy gasped,” tell
me about your first time.The man rubbed
his rough calloused hand over his eyes.He tossed his back on the round and leaned against it.He gave the boy a drink of water.Finally, he began.

“I was a boy,” he began, “not much older’n you.I’d taken my girl to the circus.”He saw the boy’s lips move again.“What’s that?” The man gave the kid another
drink of water.His eyes had taken on an
on, faraway look. “Now, don’t you bothering with questions.I’ll get to it.The circus, well what the circus really was,
was something fun that happened once a year or so.There were magicians, animals like from fairy
tales and they could do tricks, pretty girls dressed it outfits that didn’t
cover much and sparkled like the stars.When
we said we were going to the circus, though, what we meant was that we were
going somewhere to park.To kiss for
certain, more if we could get it.We
called it going to the circus ‘cause of the the wires that ran right through
the field where we’d go park our cars and into the woods on either side.There was three of em, thick and black.The first one was about twenty feet in the
air, the second ten feet above that, and the third one was another ten feet
above that.They had yellow flags on
them.They were there to mark the
timeline, and they reminded us of the wires that people would walk on in the circus.Tightropes they were called, and whenever you
watched you spent of of your time kinda hoping they’d fall, and the other half
scared to death that they were going to.That was one reason.The other reason
that they called it the circus was cause of the house.The
field was off of this country road.It
wasn’t more than a track, really, gravel, and if you followed it long enough
you’d get to this crossroads.At the
crossroads was this house, and so matter which way you came from it was across
the road and to the left.We’d spend
whole weekends, sometimes, my friends and I, trying to sneak up on the house
and see if we could see the moment that it switched places.One of us would come from one direction and
another one of us would come from another.It didn’t matter, though; we never could figure it t. We finally just
figured that it was magic, like the rings or the birds that the guy used at the
circus, and so we called it the circus house.But anyway, my girl at the time was named AnneMarie and she was just the
prettiest thing that I had ever seen.Long brown hair that looked red when the light hit it just right, big,
soft brown eyes.I’d had a crush on her
for as long as I could remember, and a couple of months before that she’d
agreed to be mine.We spent most every Friday
night at the circus, and I spent most every Saturday taking cold showers and thinking
about the way her lips had looked when she said something, or how her skin had felt,
or how I could get even further the next week.One night we went out there and it was business as usual, but soon I
realized that something was wrong.It
was cold, that was the first thing, winter was coming and this was one of the
nights that you could really believe it.We were dressed like it was still summer, probably cause in our minds it
still was, and we were both shivering even though we were pretending that we weren’t.Second, I could tell that AnneMarie was mad,
even though she kept saying that she wasn’t. We fought.I turned on the car so we could have some
heat and I bullied her until she decided to tell me what was wrong.I said that I was concerned.I said that I wanted to know so that I could
fix it.Looking back, what I really
wanted was to have a reason to fight.I
was tired of going home every week with my balls throbbing.I was tired of having to dress up every
Sunday and make nice with her folks who hated me and were going to no matter
what.So, I got the fight that I wanted
and she cried and I thought it would make me feel better but it didn’t.I just felt tired. And guilty for making her
cry. And mad at her because I felt guilty.Anyway, we decided to call it a night and I got ready to take her
home.But when I pushed the ignition,
nothing happened.Just a click.I got out and checked the tanks and sure
enough we’d fought them both empty.Well, that got me even more fired up.I pulled one of the tanks out, made sure that I slammed everything
really hard so that AnneMarie could tell how mad I was, laced up my shoes so
that she could see, and started to stomp off to the nearest fuel station.AnneMarie wanted to go with me, but I wouldn’t
let her.The last thing I needed was her
shivering beside me in her skirt and heels, twisting her ankle. Besides, if I
went by myself maybe she’d she how much I did for her.Maybe she’d be a little grateful.Looking back I didn’t treat her too well, but
man I’m glad that I at least did that right.So I stomped off, nursing my hurt feelings, telling myself all of the
things I should have said, planning out a nice speech for when I got back the
car.I got to the station and they
filled me up with air.There was an old
man there who offered to give me a ride back, but I said “no.”It would look a lot better if I walked the
whole way. That’s how much of a dumbass I was. So I walked back and for a good
part of the way I was still good and mad.Then I calmed down some.I
noticed that the moon was getting near full and remembered hoe pretty my girl
looked when the moonlight flashed off of her smile.I noticed the trees and vines and thought
about how I’d never really see them before, always having been focused on
something else.There were these great
white flowers that covered some of the old trees. Parasites, I found out later
but damn they were pretty parasites.After an hour or so, though, I still hadn’t come to the field.I think I knew then.Still, I kept searching, wandering around ‘til
I found my car right where I had left it.It was rusted all to hell and the forest had grown up right around
it.There was even a tree growing right
through where the windshield used to be, but I knew it was mine.Well I went a little crazy, bashing my head against
a tree trying to put my own brains out.All
I did though was rip up my face and put myself to sleep.I thought about going back to town, looking
AnneMarie up if she was still alive and telling her that I was sorry, but I
just couldn’t bring myself to it, so I crossed the line again, on purpose, and
been doing it ever since.”

The man finished and waited, staring at his hands, for the
kid to say something.The silence spun
out into the darkness, and after a moment the man looked down.The boy’s chest was still.The man reached out and closed his eyes.He rose, wearily, and put on his pack.He thought for a minute about doing more for
the boy, burying him or saying a few words or something.After all, he was just a kid.Then, he didn’t.He wasn’t one for words and he’d never
invited the kid along anyway.Tried to
make him go away.Besides, let them see
what they’d done, when the light came.Let the townies see just who they’d killed with their pranks.“I tried to tell him,” the man said to no one
in particular.“I tried. Damn fool kid.”
Then, he struck out west, towards the nearest timeline.